TLDR: Maverick ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962 for five seasons and 124 episodes.
James Garner played Bret Maverick, a traveling card sharp who actively avoided violence, and Jack Kelly played his brother Bart. Roger Moore played their cousin Beau for one season before leaving to star in The Saint and eventually become James Bond.
Garner left the show in Season 4 after suing Warner Bros. over a strike suspension and winning.
His replacement Robert Colbert was dressed and styled to look exactly like him, which viewers noticed and hated. The show is available on MeTV, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV.
In 1957, every Western on American television featured a stoic, physically imposing lawman who resolved conflicts with a gun. Maverick featured a gambling coward who resolved conflicts by cheating at poker and running away from fights.
Creator Roy Huggins wrote a formal set of guidelines for the show, known internally as the “Maverick Rules,” which specified that Bret Maverick must actively avoid physical danger, detest manual labor, and prefer flight over confrontation.
It became a massive hit. Audiences who had grown tired of earnest frontier heroism found Bret’s self-deprecating cowardice genuinely funny and unexpectedly human.
The show proved that a protagonist did not need to be physically dominant to be compelling, which was not an obvious lesson in 1957.
James Garner (Bret Maverick): The Lovable Rogue Who Sued His Way Out
James Garner brought something rare to Bret Maverick: the ability to make cowardice charming. His performance relied heavily on non-verbal cues: exasperated sighs, comedic double-takes, the expression of a man who can see exactly how badly things are about to go and is already calculating his exit.
His easygoing physicality made Bret’s self-interest seem reasonable rather than pathetic.
Warner Bros. paid him a modest weekly salary. The show was a ratings success. The studio enriched itself considerably. When the Writers Guild of America went on strike in 1960, Warner Bros. suspended Garner without pay using a force majeure clause.
Garner sued.
During the trial it emerged that the studio had secretly stockpiled approximately one hundred scripts and kept other productions running during the strike.
The court ruled that Maverick had not been genuinely prevented from producing, declared Garner’s contract terminated, and he walked away after Season 3. His lawyer offered him a raise or a new contract. He said he wanted out.
He returned to the character decades later. The TV film The New Maverick debuted on September 3, 1978 (not 1981 as is frequently reported), and featured both Garner and Jack Kelly reprising their roles.
In 1981 Garner starred in the NBC series Bret Maverick, in which an older, wealthier Bret finally settled in the fictional town of Sweetwater, Arizona, buying a ranch and a saloon while still running the same lighthearted schemes that had defined his youth.
For the full story of Garner’s life and the second lawsuit that proved just as consequential, see his complete biography here.
Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick): The Mayor of Huntington Beach
Jack Kelly was born on September 16, 1927, in Astoria, Queens, New York, into a theatrical family. His mother Nan Kelly was a stage actress. His older sister Nancy Kelly was an Academy Award-nominated actress.
He began as a child model and stage actor before moving to Hollywood and appearing in supporting film roles, including the classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet (1956), before signing with Warner Bros.
He joined Maverick in the eighth episode of Season 1, playing Bret’s brother Bart. The casting solved a production problem: a weekly one-hour show was logistically impossible for a single lead to carry alone.
With two production units running simultaneously on alternating weeks, the show could keep pace without killing its star. Bart was slightly more pragmatic than Bret and marginally more willing to use his fists when cornered, which made him the grounded foil to his brother’s silver-tongued scheming.
Their joint episodes featured competitive sibling rivalry and frequent double-crosses, usually for comedic effect.
After the show ended in 1962, Kelly continued acting in television guest roles and hosted the NBC daytime game show Sale of the Century from 1969 to 1971.
In his later years he transitioned into real estate and local politics in Huntington Beach, California, where he was elected to the City Council and served two terms as mayor in the 1980s.
Jack Kelly suffered a stroke and died on November 7, 1992, at Humana Hospital in Huntington Beach. He was 65.
Roger Moore (Beau Maverick): The Fourteen Episodes That Led to James Bond
When Garner left after Season 3, Warner Bros. cast British actor Roger Moore as Beau Maverick, the cousins’ cousin from England.
The backstory explained that Beau was a native Texan who had fought in the Civil War, migrated to England, and returned to the West with a refined British accent and sophisticated manners. It was not subtle.
Moore appeared in 14 episodes during the 1960-1961 season and grew frustrated quickly. The scripts assigned to him were frequently recycled drafts written for Garner that did not suit his style. He left after one season.
His brief American television exposure proved valuable anyway. Maverick demonstrated that Moore could carry a high-profile adventure series with an American audience.
That demonstration led directly to his casting as Simon Templar in the British hit The Saint (1962-1969), which made him an international star.
The suave, self-assured persona he refined during his American apprenticeship culminated in his casting as James Bond, beginning with Live and Let Die in 1973.
Diane Brewster (Samantha Crawford): The Con Artist Who Beat Bret at His Own Game
The show’s most memorable recurring female character was Samantha Crawford, a gorgeous gambling con artist who often beat Bret Maverick at poker and then made his life complicated in other ways.
She was played by Diane Brewster, born March 11, 1931, in Kansas City, Missouri. Samantha was named by creator Roy Huggins after his own mother, which tells you something about the affection the writers had for her.
Brewster appeared in four episodes between 1957 and 1958. Her first appearance in “According to Hoyle” established the dynamic immediately: Bret loses more than $17,000 to Samantha in a poker game.
She was usually on the wrong side of the law, frequently running schemes that pulled Bret or Bart into trouble, but the character was written with enough warmth and wit that audiences never fully wanted her caught.
The most celebrated episode featuring Samantha is “Shady Deal at Sunny Acres,” which brought both Garner and Kelly on screen together with Brewster.
Her last appearance came in 1958. Jodie Foster’s character in the 1994 Mel Gibson Maverick film was based directly on Brewster’s Samantha Crawford.
Brewster is also remembered for playing Miss Canfield, the second-grade teacher in Leave It to Beaver, and Helen Kimble, the doomed wife in The Fugitive.
She died on November 12, 1991, in Studio City, California, at age 60.
The Clone Who Nobody Wanted
Warner Bros. also introduced Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick, another brother, during Season 4.
The creative decision they made is remarkable in retrospect: they dressed and styled Colbert to look almost identical to James Garner. Same hair, same clothes, same posture.
The idea was that viewers would not notice the difference. Viewers noticed the difference. The reception was poor and Colbert’s appearances were limited.
Replacing a beloved lead with someone who looks like a slightly worse version of him turns out to be worse than simply replacing him.
The Parody Episode That Nobody Has Forgotten
The show’s most famous episode is “Gun-Shy” (Season 2, Episode 17, first broadcast January 11, 1959), a direct satire of Gunsmoke, which was the number-one show on television at the time.
The episode featured a pompous slow-talking Marshal named Mort Dooley parodying James Arness’s Matt Dillon, a physician who diagnosed obscure fatal illnesses in healthy patients parodying Doc Adams, a weary saloon hostess parodying Miss Kitty, and a limping dim-witted deputy parodying Chester Goode.
It was a monumental ratings triumph and is now recognized as one of the earliest examples of sophisticated self-referential television parody.
The fact that it targeted the most powerful show on television at the time made it either brave or reckless, depending on how you look at it. It worked out.
The 1994 Film and Where to Watch
The most significant revival came with the 1994 feature film Maverick, directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick. In a celebrated piece of casting, James Garner co-starred as Marshal Zane Cooper, a lawman who is eventually revealed to be Bret’s father.
The film maintained the original show’s focus on poker, double-crosses, and self-referential humor and introduced the franchise to an entirely new generation.
The original series is currently available on MeTV, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV.
Who played Maverick on the TV show?
James Garner played Bret Maverick and Jack Kelly played his brother Bart Maverick on the ABC television series Maverick, which ran from 1957 to 1962. Roger Moore played their cousin Beau Maverick for one season (1960-1961) before departing to star in The Saint and eventually becoming James Bond. Robert Colbert played another brother, Brent, briefly during Season 4.
Why did James Garner leave Maverick?
James Garner left Maverick after Season 3 following a successful lawsuit against Warner Bros. During the 1960 Writers Guild of America strike, the studio suspended him without pay using a force majeure clause. Garner sued, and during trial it emerged that Warner Bros. had stockpiled approximately one hundred scripts and continued producing other shows during the strike. The court declared his contract terminated and he walked away, famously telling his lawyer he wanted out, not a raise.
What happened to Jack Kelly from Maverick?
Jack Kelly, who played Bart Maverick, continued acting after the show ended in 1962, hosting the NBC game show Sale of the Century and guest starring in various television series. In his later years he entered politics in Huntington Beach, California, serving two terms as the city’s mayor in the 1980s. He suffered a stroke and died on November 7, 1992, at age 65.
Was Roger Moore on Maverick?
Yes. Roger Moore played Beau Maverick, a British-accented cousin, for 14 episodes during the 1960-1961 season after James Garner left the show. He grew frustrated with scripts recycled from Garner’s era and departed after one season. His time on Maverick demonstrated he could carry an American television series, leading directly to his casting in The Saint (1962) and eventually James Bond beginning with Live and Let Die (1973).
